[經濟學人翻譯] The digital currencies that matter

Source Language (English):

Government-run virtual currencies are coming. They are a giant risk that is worth taking

Technological change is upending finance. Bitcoin has gone from being an obsession of anarchists to a $1trn asset class that many fund managers insist belongs in any balanced portfolio. Swarms of digital day­traders have become a force on Wall Street. PayPal has 392m users, a sign that America is catch­ing up with China’s digital­payments giants. Yet, as our special report explains, the least noticed disruption on the frontier be­tween technology and finance may end up as the most revolutionary: the creation of government digital currencies, which typically aim to let people deposit funds directly with a central bank, bypassing conventional lenders.

These “govcoins” are a new incarnation of money. They pro­mise to make finance work better but also to shift power from individuals to the state, alter geopolitics and change how capital is allocated. They are to be treated with optimism and humility.

Target Language (Traditional Chinese):

政府正籌備推出虛擬貨幣，雖然風險巨大，但值得承擔。

科技改變正顛覆金融面貌。比特幣已經從無政府主義者一度沈迷虛擬貨幣成長成價值1萬億的資產階級，讓許多基金經理堅信是平衡投資組合的成分之一，電子短炒家亦成為華爾街股市的推動力。PayPal現有3億9200萬名用戶，標誌出美國正逐步超越中國電子付款的龍頭地位。但經濟學人的特別報告卻指出，科技和金融之間的權利干擾雖然最不為人矚目，卻可能是最具革命性的一環：一般來說，政府推出的電子貨幣目的是希望讓人們將資金直接存入中央銀行，無需再經過傳統的借貸機構。

這些「政府幣」是貨幣的新化身，他們的出現承諾會讓金融體系運作得更好，但同時亦將權利從個人轉移至國家，改變地緣政治，亦改變資金分配形式，而我們應該以樂觀和謙遜的態度看待「政府幣」。